Jim’s the word for helping immigrants (From Oxford Mail)

Jim’s the word for helping immigrants

11:00am Monday 19th July 2010 in News By Emily Allen

COMMUNITY worker Jim Hewitt has compiled a 6,000 word dictionary to help East Timor residents in Blackbird Leys learn English.

And he hopes his work will help couples like Sanzina Dos Santos Alves and Timoteo Fernandes, and particularly their young baby Thamia Parry Shinay who is growing up in Oxford.

Mr Hewitt began working on the dictionary eight years ago after noticing Fataluku-speaking residents from the Indonesian country living in the city were struggling to communicate.

Fataluku is one of the languages of East Timor and is spoken in the Lautem district, but it is very different from the main language Tetun.

The 66-year-old, who speaks the Fataluku language fluently, has a keen interest in East Timor and its languages and for the past 11 years has been helping any new arrivals settle in the city.

He often acts as a volunteer translator, helping residents understand important conversations in hospitals, at work and at job centres.

Mr Hewitt, who founded the Blackbird Leys Credit Union, said: “There are lots of people who speak Fataluku in Blackbird Leys who want to learn English.

“There are lots of language groups in East Timor, but I have got to know this community particularly well and I have learned their language.

“I am producing a word list, or dictionary, and I have got a list of English words matched with the Fataluku word.

“It’s proved useful in Blackbird Leys.

“I would guess there are between 50 and 100 people from East Timor in Blackbird Leys and of those all speak Tetun, which is the main national language, and about 30 or 40 speak Fataluku.”

Mr Hewitt, of Monks Close, Blackbird Leys, has now published the list on the Internet at fataluku.org Fataluku speakers from across the UK have been accessing the site. His work is also being used by the Fataluku Language Project, being carried out with Leiden University Centre for Linguistics in the Netherlands, which is working to create an official written version of the purely spoken language.

The people of East Timor, Mr Hewitt said, were inspirational for struggling for 25 years to gain their independence from Indonesia in 1999, and had a strong family and community culture.

He said: “They were written off by the rest of the world when the Indonesian military invaded their country 35 years ago.

“Everyone, Britain, America, Australia, said let them take it, but the people struggled for 25 years and in the end they got their independence, and I find that very inspiring.”

He added: “I find that the Fataluku people, and as far as I know the other peoples of East Timor, bear no ill will towards the people of those countries and have a great sense of friendly solidarity with the people of Indonesia, their neighbours.

“They can tell the difference between governments and people, between the brutality of an unaccountable military system and the good will of ordinary people.”